Sina Weibo – 511 million
Alphabet-owned YouTube is the only serious competitor and its focus on videos puts it in a very different sector to Facebook’s social media platforms and messaging services. With this in mind, there is an argument that Facebook has a monopoly over social media in the West. There are competitors in the market, but they do not boast the user numbers or the power to attract the same level of marketing dollars as Facebook. For example, Snapchat has 498 million users while Twitter has less than 200 million monetizable users.
Notably, many of the businesses Facebook acquired, particularly in its earlier years, were closed with the talent and technology being integrated into Facebook, while some rival social media sites were bought and shut down.